So... my girlfriend's mom figured out my birthname, not from asking myself or her daughter, but by simply searching my name on the internet and putting two and two together.  Anyone could do this, if they wanted to.

I searched myself and found hits for myself in the three locations I have lived, including sites linking me with my prior name.  For some sites, only my current legal name is used, which is fine, but unfortunately these 'auto-generated' profiles have a gender, and they've got me listed as 'female.'  Uhh... slight problem?  Anyone who searches my name can find this info easily and it is unique enough that it won't be buried in results of other people's names.  All (and I mean all--birth certificate, passport, drivers' license, social security, etc.) of my legal documentation reads 'male,' but the internets has it wrong.  Seeing as how it's publicly available, that strikes me as a problem.

Anybody have a solution for this, or do I simply wait it out until the records overwrite themselves?  Can that even happen if I no longer live in a place and there is no data to overwrite the old data?  (And why, when I have three separate 'profiles' on one site, for three separate locations, is it that the only one that lists a gender has it wrong? >.<)

Out of curiosity, I searched some of my friends who have had a name change and there were hits that clearly indicated their prior legal names.  Seems to me that this would be an issue that potentially affects all of us.

Quote from: Bailey on March 24, 2013, 07:10:16 PM
One of the major reasons this exists is because, contrary to popular belief, US residents have very little privacy: almost everything is public record and can easily be found without to much trouble. You won't be able to get rid of it on the internet unless you start sending out cease and desist letters.

I don't think it's popular belief that we have privacy, a child born in the US is essentially on the internet from the first tweet of "I'm pregnant! "

What kinds of sites are these? I've found info about myself at people-search sites such as Intelius...is that what you are talking about? The ones I've seen do not list my sex, however, so I wonder if you are talking about something else. A few actual site names would help.

Intelius and similar sites are supposed to have opt-out policies, btw, and you might be able to correct wrong info.

MyLife is the offending party with gender info.

I did find this, with regards to getting data off of MyLife:
http://server.iad.liveperson.net/hc/s-58923351/cmd/kbresource/kb-6326972385742795400/view_question!PAGETYPE?sf=101133&documentid=383951&action=view
(copy/pasting the URL works if the link doesn't)

I'll see how responsive they are.

Intellius is the one linking my entire immediate family together with my legal name and my birthname.  Problematic for myself and for them.

I'll look into the opt-out for that one.

There are other people search sites, but those only list my name and residence, no gender or familial relations, so it's fine.

I wasn't aware of there being an opt-out.  I figured the sites were pretty much faceless, headless and there to make money by selling data--so no way they would remove somebody's.  But here's hoping I can make some headway.

Everyone should be aware that if a name change is relatively recent, some sites will eventually identify one name as an alias for the other--just as they apparently have for you, Ender.

I've been meaning to opt out of some of these sites, but I haven't had the will or the time. Anyway, I'm not sure how to do it. I would have to opt out of BOTH names, and I think I would have to prove that I am the party in question. I'm not sure how it works, but it sounds messy and complicated.

I should look into MyLife, too. I don't recall having looked myself up there.

ETA: Is MyLife voluntary, like Facebook? I'm confused.

Quote from: Arch on March 24, 2013, 09:28:16 PM
I've been meaning to opt out of some of these sites, but I haven't had the will or the time. Anyway, I'm not sure how to do it. I would have to opt out of BOTH names, and I think I would have to prove that I am the party in question. I'm not sure how it works, but it sounds messy and complicated.

I think it sounds messy and complicated, too.  I was hoping the data would just 'cycle through' relatively quickly, become outdated and replaced, and I wouldn't have to bother with it.  But I'm actually having problems with it (ie, people from my life finding out more than they should), so the 'ignore it and maybe it will go away' method isn't working so well for me.

MyLife is, I believe, more of an aggregate site than a social media site, like Facebook.  MyLife seems to make you a profile based on data they have purchased, then they encourage you to 'claim' your pre-made profile.  From there you can edit your info.  Sly way to get a userbase.  I've never seen Facebook make profiles for people, people make one of their own volition.  I would 'claim' my MyLife profile and edit the offending data, but out of the three they have on me, only one has 'female' and that's the one that isn't available to claim for some odd reason.  And no, there isn't another person with my same exact (somewhat unique) name, same exact age, in that very small town.

This whole mess is kind of a good reason for people to choose very common names with very common spellings.  The 'hits' for their name will get buried in a search.

If you have to log on to access any profiles and your login is explicitly identified as belonging to a male person, then it makes sense that the F profile cannot be claimed by you. You might have to generate another account with your F information. You might want to do that from a different computer? Or would it make a difference?

I have similar misgivings about Rate My Professors--except that I have been unsuccessful in getting RMP to toss out reviews that call me "she." I was hoping that old reviews would disappear after five years or so--if they did, then my female reviews would all fall out in the next year or two--but that hasn't happened. I just cross my fingers and hope that my current students are too lazy to read more than one or two screens back. I can laugh off one "she" and chalk it up to an international student. Two or three uses of the wrong pronoun, I cannot shrug off if someone asks me. I have a ready answer, but I would rather not use it at all.

Where on the profile page is sex listed?

Wow, all this sounds so complicated

One of the many reasons I picked a popular name was just so it'd be harder to do research on me.

That kind of stuff related to the internet gives me so much anxiety.
I'm sorry for you. Hope you get things fixed.

if you are really worried about it, you can hire a reputation management company

I have no idea what they charge, but I know they exist and they probably work because people seem to keep paying for it

basically, they do the work for you cleaning out stuff that shows up in search engines by contacting sites and creating new results

I think all sorts of people hire them, so you could probably find one not outrageously pricey

Quote from: Arch on March 24, 2013, 10:58:55 PM
Where on the profile page is sex listed?

On the MyLife site, if they have info, it would say Gender under the URL and above Places Lived.  The one profile that says 'Female' has this.  The other two MyLife profiles do not have any gender info at all, so the word 'Gender' does not even appear.  It's just URL, then Places Lived.

Quote from: spacerace on March 25, 2013, 02:21:10 PM
if you are really worried about it, you can hire a reputation management company

Not a bad idea if I can't get this taken care of by myself, didn't know that even existed.

I started a free account to see what they had on me, and now I regret it. I couldn't see a way to edit personal info like my birth date, so I changed the birth date. I tried to see other pages with my name--one of them is undoubtedly me--and I was not allowed to see the page without paying for a subscription. What a crock.

That sucks :/

In the FAQ that I linked above, they have instructions for deleting your profile entirely I think.

I'm not sure about multiple pieces of info on the same person, but one might hope...